L010b - Mon 11 May 1998 / Lun 11 Mai 1998 1
The House met at 1831.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
1998 ONTARIO BUDGET
Resuming the adjourned debate on the amendment to the amendment to the motion that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government.
Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt): I'm pleased to continue the debate on the budget. I want to start talking about something we discussed earlier in the Legislature this afternoon, and that is, what are the real numbers? What's really happening to the deficit and the finances of the province? The people of Ontario assume that the budget will be the document that gives them the most accurate reflection of the finances of their province. As I said earlier, if this were a publicly traded company, this would be the prospectus, if you will.
The first thing I wanted to talk about on the budget was to say that I don't think the budget any longer reflects an accurate statement of the finances of the province. The reason I say that is that the government has decided in the fiscal year just ended, March 31, 1998, to write off $3.2 billion of what was called restructuring money. I have no difficulty with governments writing off restructuring money if it truly is restructuring money, but what the government did, and they just did it in the last few days, was to write off at least $1.7 billion of expenses that were planned for this fiscal year, 1998-99, and next fiscal year, 1999-2000. They simply took those expenses, moved them back into last fiscal year, and wrote them off.
The Minister of Finance, by the way, today in explaining was incorrect. He said it was teacher pension money; it wasn't. It was $971 million of school board expenses, $800 million of planned capital expenditures for the Sheppard subway, and those moneys were moved back to last fiscal year. In my opinion - and I look forward to the Provincial Auditor's comments on this - the deficit that was reported last year of $5.2 billion is incorrect. The deficit last year, the fiscal year that just ended, is closer to $3.5 billion.
Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand): We did a better job.
Mr Phillips: The member across says, "We did a better job." I think the people are entitled to the most accurate reflection of the finances possible. It will be up to the Provincial Auditor to make that comment and I look forward to it, because -
Interjection.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Gilles E. Morin): The member for Quinte, please.
Mr Phillips: He may not want to hear all of this, but as I said earlier, I think the real deficit last year was $3.5 billion.
Mr Preston: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: If you're going to chastise me, I'm from Brant-Haldimand.
The Acting Speaker: Okay. I think you understood the message just the same.
Mr Phillips: The member for Brant-Haldimand, when the public is anxious for a debate on the finances, is choosing to be in here tonight barracking. You're quite right, Mr Speaker, to try and bring him to order; I realize it may be difficult for you.
That's the first point I wanted to make: I don't think the financial reporting any longer reflects reality. It will be up to the Provincial Auditor to point that out, but I think the deficit last year was closer to $3.5 billion, and of course what it means this year is that the deficit, rather than being roughly the $4 billion that's planned, will be dramatically lower than that. I think it's unfortunate that, for whatever reason, the government now is choosing, in my opinion, and I look forward to the Provincial Auditor, to no longer reflect reality in the budget.
While I'm on that, there is another issue that I think is extremely troubling and is relevant to our budget, and that is the way Ontario Hydro is now reporting its finances. Recognize this: The credit rating agencies, the agencies that tell Ontario and the public and those who loan money to Ontario the creditworthiness of Ontario, are extremely worried about Hydro. Hydro, in their annual report released just last week, decided to write off against last fiscal year $6.5 billion of expenses. This is what the financial statement says, that the related amounts which would have been charged to future operations under generally accepted accounting principles weren't. In other words, the board of directors at Hydro, for whatever reason, used a loophole in their authority to write off $6.5 billion worth of expenses that should have been incurred in 1998, 1999, and 2000. They wrote them off against last year and they did not use generally accepted accounting principles.
The public may wonder, who really cares about all that? You should care about it for two reasons. One reason it was done is because Premier Harris promised no rate increases. If they had followed generally accepted accounting principles, there would have had to have been rate increases, but they chose to use this loophole and write it off against last fiscal year. This is what the chairman, Mr Farlinger, says about it: "The effect of all of this," using the loophole, writing off $6.5 billion, "is that Ontario Hydro will be able to maintain its commitment to a rate freeze until the end of the decade. This accounting decision will not affect our future competitiveness."
I say to the public that for the first time now, in my opinion, and the Provincial Auditor will be the final arbiter of this, we have a budget that doesn't reflect accurately the finances of the province, and we have a very serious problem at Ontario Hydro, where they are using a loophole to not accurately reflect the finances at Ontario Hydro. We all know the problem as the financial community becomes aware of these issues.
I want to talk also briefly about teachers' pensions. The government has, in its financial statements for 1998-99, an expense of $62 million for teachers' pensions. We asked the officials, "How much will we actually be spending in cash in 1998-99?" They said, "Actually, we will be expending, laying out in cash, $1.2 billion." So we said: "Wait a minute. We're reporting an expense of $62 million and a cash outlay of $1.2 billion. Why is that?" You get the answer, "Well, one is accrual accounting and one is cash accounting." I would just say again to the public, as you look to the budget as the document that gives you your best indication of the finances of the province, $62 million -
Hon David Turnbull (Minister without Portfolio): Gerry, tell us about your last budget.
Mr Phillips: Mr Turnbull gets in here as usual and starts to barrack, but I would just say that I think the public is owed an explanation of the $1.2 billion of cash that will be spent by the taxpayers and the $62 million recorded on our books.
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The next issue I want to talk about in the budget is gambling. In the budget Premier Harris acknowledges that there is going to be widespread introduction of slot machines. As a matter of fact, the budget outlines that people in Ontario will lose about $1 billion in the slot machines. They will go in there and they will stay in there: $1 billion, which incidentally is virtually identical to the tax cut. The tax cut in this budget is $1 billion; the amount of money that people will lose in Ontario in slot machines is $1 billion.
I say to the people of Ontario, if it is crucial that Ontario borrow money for a tax cut to stimulate the economy, wouldn't taking $1 billion out of people's pockets for slot machines represent a drag on the economy? In the budget it says, "We will use all the money gained from slot machines as incremental money to fund health care."
This is now clear: The quality of our health care system in Ontario will depend on how much money is lost by people in slot machines. If they $500 million, there will be less money for health than if they lose $1 billion, because the slot machine revenue will be spent incrementally on health care. Nothing now could be clearer than that the quality of our health care system will depend now on how much money we rake in from slot machines. I say to Ontarians, is that really what we want? Do we want our health care system dependent on slot machine revenues? It seems to me that something as fundamental and important as our health care shouldn't depend on the revenue from slot machines.
I might add that I think the introduction of 44 casinos across the province with - I think the province is planning 15,000 slot machines. The numbers they've given us indicate people will lose $1 billion on slot machines. I think we are heading into uncharted waters, and certainly relying on slot machines for the quality of our health care is dead wrong.
The next item I want to talk about is education and the way we now record education spending on the province's books. I will remind us once again that now the province, Mike Harris, sets the education property tax rates. The fourth-largest source of revenue for the province now is property taxes. A year ago the province got zero from property tax. Now, this year, the province will set over $6 billion of property taxes. By the way, for the public, it's quite extraordinary that these tax rates are set without even a debate here. We never have a chance to debate the setting of $6 billion worth of property taxes.
Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): It's undemocratic.
Mr Phillips: It's undemocratic, as my colleague said.
Mr John R. Baird (Nepean): We're doing it right now.
Mr Phillips: We are not doing it. We will have no opportunity for a vote on it. Mr Baird says, "We're doing it right now." If any council in this province ever tried this, to set taxes without a vote, without giving anybody a chance to vote - we will never vote on it. We'll never have a chance to vote on it. Mike Harris will simply say, "There's what it will be."
Mr Baird: What about at 9:30?
The Acting Speaker: Member for Nepean, there will be a period for questions and comments.
Mr Phillips: Mr Baird says we'll vote on it at 9:30. We will not vote on any property tax rates at all. People will not have an opportunity to come here and say, "When did you approve this 0.46 property tax?" We never did, never had a vote in the Legislature on it. I would say to the businesses in this province, when you look at your property taxes, over half of your property taxes are now set by Mike Harris, and it's all done by what we call around here regulation, not even a debate here in the Legislature about the rate Mike Harris is going to set, and he can set it each year through regulation. Next year, if he wants a different rate, he sets a different rate.
Today we had a briefing - this is interesting - on the property tax bill. I asked, "Now that the province is setting the education property taxes, will it appear as provincial revenue in the budget?" They said: "Oh, yes, now that the province is setting it, it will. It'll have to show here as provincial revenue." I said: "That's good. I agree with that. We're getting somewhere." The bureaucrats said, "Yes, it'll be part of the budget revenues, now the fourth-largest source of revenue." So we got confirmation at the meeting and we left the meeting. I was there with one of my colleagues, Mr Crozier; my colleague right behind me was there and he'll confirm that the bureaucrats said, "Of course it should be there." I got back to my office and I got a call from the political staff saying: "There was a little mistake made. It will not show up as provincial revenue."
We've asked - on behalf of my caucus I've asked - the Provincial Auditor to look at this, because what could now be clearer than that the province sets the property tax rate? Nobody else does it. Mike Harris sets it. It's set provincially. Every single school board budget is set by the province, down to the last penny, and education now is completely in the control of the Premier. The reason it's important is that if we want to understand the finances of the province and who's responsible for what - by the way, it's clear that school boards have debt of roughly $3 billion to $4 billion that now can only be handled by the province. That should be on the provincial books if we want to have an accurate reflection of our finances.
The reason I spend so much time on this is that I always say to my business friends that if Ontario were a company going to the Ontario Securities Commission to get listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, they wouldn't list this company, because they'd say the numbers don't reflect the company's "profitability," and I go through the various issues.
First, in my opinion, and I think the Provincial Auditor may very well support it, we are playing huge games now. Revenue starts to roll in, so the province just keeps throwing more and more expenses against it rather than saying, "They're thrown in and the finances are improving," because politically Mike Harris didn't want to show a lower deficit than $5.2 billion, so there are these "restructuring" moneys, but only two weeks ago they were presented to us as regular school board spending; now they are "restructuring" moneys. The TTC capital for five years was laid out for us in a plan, then suddenly, when the money rolled in, it was all written off in one year. We are playing substantial games with the books of the province.
The good news is that I think the rating agencies understand that and will see through it and will analyse the numbers, but playing games with budget books - and then, in my opinion, Hydro playing significant games, refusing to use normal accounting principles, writing off $6.5 billion of future expenses to the previous year, for two reasons. One key reason was that if they didn't do that, they would have been forced to raise rates, and of course Mike Harris doesn't want rates raised 12 months before an election, so the taxpayers are forced to move $6.5 billion on to last year's books, in my opinion inappropriately.
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I have only a minute and a half to go here now, but just to summarize, our concern is that the budget doesn't reflect reality. Hydro's budget doesn't reflect reality. The taxpayers of Ontario guarantee Hydro's debt. If Hydro has a problem with debt, it's our problem, because we guarantee it.
The gambling is dangerous. Counting on $1 billion to be lost in slot machines by hardworking Ontario taxpayers to fund our health care system - if they don't lose it, the health care system doesn't get it; if they do lose it, it does get it - is no way to plan a health care system.
Finally, I agree with the bureaucrats, with the civil service: I think the education property tax revenue now should be shown as part of provincial revenue. It's now the fourth-largest source of revenue.
We no longer have an accurate reflection of the finances of the province, and that's unfortunate because that is the basis on which Ontario residents should be able to judge the financial wellbeing of the province.
The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments?
Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): I want to congratulate my friend from Scarborough-Agincourt on his presentation. I would just like to focus on one particular aspect. He talked about the folly of depending on gambling profits from slot machines to fund basic services that are fundamental to our society, like health care. I think most of us who have thought about this will understand that's not an appropriate way of doing things.
When we were in government - and let's face it, all parties have had something to do with the changes with regard to gaming in the province. The Liberal government moved forward with the Ontario Lottery Corp. Our government brought in the casinos. This Premier, when he was in opposition, said that in Ontario there was not a revenue problem, there was an expenditure problem, that you didn't need any revenue. He wasn't interested in revenue from casinos or gaming, he simply wanted to cut expenditures. Well, he certainly has cut expenditures, but he has vastly expanded the gaming aspects in this province over and above what either of the other two parties proposed.
When we were in government, there were people who were interested in this aspect who said two things to us. One was, "You should go for VLTs, and if not VLTs, slot machines." We asked about the odds on those machines. I was told the odds are about 90 to 1. That's where the big casinos in the United States make their money.
Mr Patten: In whose favour?
Mr Wildman: In favour of the government. You might ask why we didn't do it. We didn't do it because it meant that very many people would become addicted. This government has done that, plus they're getting rid of charity casinos and bringing in 44 permanent casinos. It's unthinkable.
Mr Baird: I listened with great interest to the remarks of my colleague the member for Scarborough-Agincourt. With great surprise I saw him hold up a copy of the budget and say, "If you were to take this down the street to the Ontario Securities Commission and ask it if the numbers in this budget accurately reflected the profitability of the company" - and I notice he didn't mention in his remarks the true numbers reflected in this budget, the more than 350,000 net new jobs created in the province. I think most people in Ontario would look very wisely and well at these numbers and they'd say that they reflect very well the profitability of the company. Nor did he mention the 250,000 people who no longer are dependent on government assistance, on handouts. Independent studies have said a majority of them are out in the labour market earning their own keep in the dignity of their own jobs. I don't think he mentioned that.
He also went on with great fanfare about accrual accounting. I'll tell you where accrual accounting came from: It came as a result of the Ontario Financial Review Commission brought in after this government was elected. They looked at the financial procedures of the past two governments and recommended a whole host of measures to try to clean up the system. These good people showed up in government after the 1990 election and heard about a $78-million surplus. I look over at my friends in the New Democratic Party. Was there a $78-million surplus?
Mr Wildman: No, there was a $400-million deficit.
Mr Baird: A $400-million deficit. I think if you actually looked at it, it would be a $3-billion deficit. Yet they ran very glossy ads in every part of the province talking about how they had delivered a balanced budget to Ontario. Miraculously, within 21 days, when Floyd Laughren took over the treasury of this province, he found a gigantic deficit. In fact, it was the biggest deficit in the -
Mr Wildman: A $4-billion deficit.
Mr Baird: - a $4-billion deficit, the member for Algoma says - one of the biggest deficits in the province's history. That is important to put on the record. We look very sceptically at some of these claims.
He talked about debate on the budget. This is the first time this government has mandated that we will have a debate on the budget and mandated that every member will have to get up and say "yea" or "nay" and have a mandated vote on this budget. That's good news found accountability.
Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): I'd just like to begin by saying how fortunate we are to have a member of this calibre with his financial background to show us the other side of the budget. When I attend classes in high schools, I always talk about democracy and about how there's always the other side.
I'd just like to begin my comments by suggesting that we are very fortunate with Mr Phillips, the member for Scarborough-Agincourt, to alert us to the other facts that can be seen. As a good number of us know, he does this on a regular basis through what he calls the Treasury Watch.
Mr Baird: Often quoted as an independent source of information.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Nepean, you had your turn.
Mr Miclash: In that document, he lets people know the other side of what's going on in terms of what the government is doing with the books here in Ontario.
As the member has indicated, the Provincial Auditor will be commenting on the budget. We're certainly looking forward to those comments and to what he's going to say about Ontario Hydro, the $6.5-billion write-off, as the member has indicated, and the loopholes that are being used by Ontario Hydro and what's going to happen there. He will also probably comment on the teacher pension plan, where we hear a figure of $1.2 billion versus a figure of $62 million recorded on the books - again, something very interesting, something that we look forward to the Provincial Auditor taking a closer look at.
The thing the member raises as well that touches home with me is the borrowing of the dollars to service the tax cut and the addition of the $5 billion to the provincial debt. A lot of people don't understand that, but we are being faced with an additional $5 billion being put on the provincial debt.
Again, I would just like to point out that we're always happy to have this member talk a little bit about the other side and give us a real, true feeling about what the budget means to many Ontarians.
Mr Gilles Pouliot (Lake Nipigon): I too very much enjoyed the remarks from the member for Scarborough-Agincourt. We did fight some battles, sir, and I've benefited from the good counsel and mostly always, through good research, relatively accurate figures. He too highlighted his presentation by saying, "Where is the money?"
It's not so much that the government has two, three or four different sets of books, it's that under one set of books they have many, many different accounts. It's really tales of Houdini, pretty cheap accounting, because in the private sector it's the same tactics and strategies, because it's nothing short, nothing more than that. The kind of poudre aux yeux, the kind of a shell game without the pea. There are no winners here, except that the government is packing. Don't go looking for the truth with the last budget. You shall not find it.
Mr Bill Murdoch (Grey-Owen Sound): The pea? Is that it? Is there no pea?
Mr Pouliot: Keep your mouth shut for a second; you'll have your chance.
The minister said, "A promise made, a promise kept." He said: "I'm returning money to the people of Ontario. It belongs to all of us. It doesn't belong to any government, certainly not ours."
Wrong again, because this is borrowed money and the benefactors are the bond holders, those people across and others who clip coupons. But the people have not gained by this budget; quite the contrary, as the member from Agincourt has reminded us.
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The Acting Speaker: The member for Scarborough-Agincourt.
Mr Phillips: I appreciate the comments of each of the members. The member for Nepean may not be aware of the facts. He indicated this will be the first time there's been a vote on the budget. He implies this hasn't been done before. In 1989, eight days of debate, a vote; in 1988, 11 days of debate and a vote; in 1986, eight days of debate and a vote; in 1985, seven days and a vote; in 1984, eight days and vote.
Mr Baird: And 1990, 1991, 1992.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Nepean, you had your turn.
Mr Phillips: Mr Baird probably needs to check his facts.
Mr Alex Cullen (Ottawa West): What, again?
Mr Phillips: Again, as they say.
Also, just a small point, but he said that people on social assistance are getting government handouts. I think that was an unfortunate expression of his and I want to dissociate myself from that comment. I don't view people on social assistance as getting government handouts. I view them as needing help. Rather than a handout, it is a plan to assist, in many respects, our less fortunate.
The member for Algoma mentioned gambling. I want to tell you, this is going to be seen as obscene - a billion dollars being lost by hardworking people in Ontario on slot machines and the amount of money that goes into health dependent on how much money they lose. It simply is bizarre that the quality of our health care system now is going to depend on the amount of money going into the slot machines. It's wrong. I don't know who in the government made that decision, but I think people in Ontario who are worried about health care will say: "I don't want the quality of my health care system dependent on how many people are unfortunately going to have to lose money in slot machines. If it's right, we do it."
The Acting Speaker: The member for Sault Ste Marie.
Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): Two weeks ago in this place we heard a speech from the throne where the usual suspects, as pointed to by this government, were again presented to us: the poor; organized workers, union workers; and criminals, or people who find themselves unfortunately incarcerated for doing something usually dumb or silly or out of sync with the community in which they live.
Then, a week later, we got a budget that painted this picture of an economy that is just churning along on all eight cylinders. For me - I don't know about you - it begs the question, if we're doing so well and the economy is doing so well and there is so much money being generated out there, why are we targeting anybody? Why are some people winning and some people losing, and why is it that those who are losing are in every instance the most unfortunate among us, the most challenged among us, the most marginalized among us? That's the question I ask when I spend some time looking at what's transpired here in the last couple of weeks.
I have to tell you, it leaves me with this terrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that we're heading down a road that is not in any way consistent with the Canadian story. As I said earlier in the day, the narrative that we used to live our life by, the narrative that guided the development of community and the way government operated in this province and in this country is broken. Somebody needs to say that. Somebody needs to paint that picture so that others can see.
I guess that's the other thing that concerns me in light of all of this, that there are so few, it seems, out there who understand, who are able to put a finger on why it is that in a land of plenty so many, more and more as each day goes by, are so anxious about their future, the future of their children and the future of the community they live in. It speaks to me in a different part of my experience and my being.
As many of you in this place will know, I'm an immigrant to this country. I come from Ireland. Not so many years ago in Ireland there was a famine. It's often referred to as the potato famine, and in probably some very meaningful way it was a potato famine. That's what the powers that be in those days would have you believe it was. But in fact it wasn't a potato famine, although the potato crop failed. It was an exercise of manipulation of the economy by an élite few who took advantage of the many working people to make an extra few dollars, given a very challenging circumstance.
I just want to read for you, if you'll indulge me for a moment, a small piece from a book I've been reading lately called Famine Diary. It's a book written by a fellow by the name of Gerald Keegan, who actually lived through the famine to tell the story. One chapter starts off with a poem.
"Weary men, what reap ye?
"Golden corn for the stranger.
"What sow ye? Human corpses for the avenger.
"Fainting forms, hunger stricken,
"What see ye in the offing?
"Stately ships that bear our food away,
"Amid the stranger's scoffing.
"There's a proud array of soldiers,
"What do they round your door?
"They guard our masters granaries,
"From the thin hands of the poor."
It goes on to say:
"March 31. It is early morning as I write this last note before departing. We now join a huge army forced to leave their native land for the convenience of the rich and the powerful. The heavy morning mist is a fitting curtain for the final scene, the climax, of all our strivings against impossible odds. It is a scene of utter devastation. A line from Dark Rosaleen comes to my mind:
"`Woe and pain, pain and woe
"`Are your lot both night and noon.'
"I cannot help but glance back through the pages of history to the years when Ireland was a beacon of learning and faith whose light spread to all parts of Europe. Her poets, bards and musicians were known and loved throughout the land. Her monasteries were centres of faith and culture, a light to the world. God grant that those days of glory may some day return to Dark Rosaleen.
"`The judgement hour must first be nigh
"`Ere you can fade, ere you can die,
"`My Dark Rosaleen.'"
The folks across the way laugh. They laugh at the lot of those who are destroyed by the economic situation that was imposed upon them by the élite of their day. They're not able to relate that to what's happening in Ontario today. That's obvious, because if they did, they wouldn't be laughing. It wouldn't be a joking matter. It wouldn't be funny. They would know that in their own communities, by way of the very destructive decisions they have made since they came to power in 1995, more and more families are going hungry, more and more families are losing their homes, more and more families are getting sick and are not able to access the health care they need. More and more families are struggling to find a place, to find a way to support themselves, and they can't. In the very few instances where they can, the recompense is so meagre that it's almost as disparaging and disappointing and depressing as the situation they're trying to get out of.
It's interesting when you look at the history of the Irish people and the fact that the British came in and took over their land and pushed them ever more aggressively into a corner of the property they once owned and tilled to feed themselves and their neighbours so that the land owner, the lord, could plant and grow and sell cash crops to foreigners, export. Does this sound familiar to some of you? It certainly does to me.
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As they got pushed further and further into that corner of their property that they once owned and they used that little piece of land to produce, yes, that staple of Ireland for so many years, as it is again, the potato, the nutrients ran out and the potato went sour, and the people died. Did the élite of that day, did the land owners of that day, did the barons of that day, did the industrialists of that day, did those people who were making money hand over fist off the product of that land of that day come to the aid of those dying workers? No, they didn't. They watched.
Mr Murdoch: Where was this?
Mr Martin: Ireland. If you'd pay attention, you'd know, Bill.
Did they come to the rescue of those people? No, they didn't. They died.
Did the people of the day rise up in opposition to what they knew was an injustice, an unfairness among them? No, they didn't, until it was too late. There's something there for us today to contemplate, to look at, to think about for a minute.
We don't have to look even much further than Central and South America for another example of exactly the same phenomenon. We had people down there, small farming people, who owned plots of land that they grew crops on, that they fed their families from. The industrialists and the venture capitalists and the businesspeople from North America went down there and took a look and they saw land that was rich in nutrients, that could produce crops, but not the kind of crops that would feed the people of places like Brazil and Guatemala and Mexico and El Salvador. No, they were looking for crops that they could sell on the market in North America, like coffee, for example, that would do nothing, really, for the people of that area by way of their daily existence. They thought that was okay. As a matter of fact, they went to the peasants and they said, "I'll give you $10,000 for that piece of land." These people had never seen $10,000 in their life before. They thought they had won the lottery.
As a matter of fact, listening to my colleague from Scarborough-Agincourt a few minutes ago when he talked about the new economy based on casinos that we're introducing in Ontario, it's not that dissimilar. These people thought they had won the lottery. They took the $10,000, they moved to the city, and within a year or two that money was gone and those people were paupers in their own country, in the city, where they were unfamiliar with the way of that place. They descended ever so quickly into more dire poverty with each day that went by.
I had a friend who went down there in the mid-1970s to do some work in Mexico and Guatemala and El Salvador and Costa Rica. She came back and she spoke to me about the poverty she saw. I said: "What can I do to help? How can I be most helpful to you in that very important work that you do down there?"
You know what she said to me? She didn't say, "Come on down." She didn't say, "Send all your money down." She said: "Make sure that what's happening down here does not happen up there, that the gains you've made in places like Canada and Ontario under the guise of health care, under the aegis of education for everybody, under the programs of social assistance that you provide for people who find themselves down on their luck - make sure that the powers that be who are taking so much away from the people I work with every day do not begin to do the same thing up there in Canada. If they do, we have nothing to point to any more, we have nothing to shoot for any more, because then we become the model, we become the target, we become the level to which everybody else has to measure up." She said, "Please don't let that happen."
That's one of the reasons I'm here today, because I took her seriously when she said that and so I became involved in my own community, became involved in working with people who were struggling in one way or another. In Sault Ste Marie I set up a soup kitchen in the early 1980s so that I could do some direct action with people, so that I could understand their lives and what they were struggling with, so that I could from there begin to do some public education with the larger community in which I lived.
Eventually, who knows what happens? But I ended up here so that I could from this vantage point speak out as sincerely and as articulately and as often as I could on behalf of those who are now becoming more and more, with every day that goes by, the victims of this government driven by, yes, other mandarins, other bosses out there who are driven by greed and fear, who have no soul, who have no conscience, who have no other interest but the bottom line, to do whatever it takes to get rid of the programs that are costly and bring in opportunity for investment, no matter the cost to our labour standards, to our environmental standards, to our social programs. That's why I stand here today and speak to you about that.
I ask people out there and across the way and around this House to please think twice, think hard about what it is that we do. Look around your community, because we are becoming more and more frayed at the edges. As the edge gets frayed and we don't do anything about it, we just leave it there and we don't attend to it, it begins to eat more and more towards the middle. Pretty soon the middle-class working people of Ontario begin to feel the tension and the disease that enters the community. As they begin to feel the disease and the tension and the anxiety, the whole community begins to suffer.
I dare say to any of you, if you spend any time at home, at the coffee shop or at the grocery store, or if you go to church on Sunday and talk to the folks on your way in or your way out, they will tell you now that even though the statistics are saying there are more jobs, there's more money, the economy's doing well, that we're poised for strong industrial growth down the road, the people out there, the working-class people, the middle-class working people of Ontario are feeling more and more anxious about themselves, and most particularly about their kids, about their families, about their aging parents and about their community.
That's sad, because it doesn't need to be that way. Ontario is a strong industrial economy. Ontario can afford to provide for all of us who call Ontario home.
It's interesting that this newspaper they call the Catholic Register, which I've read for so many years and which used to be, in my view - and I'm often wrong - such a right-wing piece of work has more and more become a paper that I look forward to seeing, because it has some very excellent exposés of the impact of the decisions of this government on those out there whom we, if you call yourselves Christian people, are most concerned about. This is the issue of May 4 and it's an article talking about the fact that Bishop John O'Mara in St Catharines came out in support of the Days of Action in your community. John O'Mara said, "People Urged to Reflect on Harris's Attack on the Poor."
I would suggest to you that that attack on the poor may soon be at your front door, may soon be affecting you or your neighbour or somebody in your family. The disease that's in the land, the disease that's out there that is making people anxious, that is causing people concern, that is making them stay awake at night thinking about themselves, their families, their aging parents, their neighbours, is growing. This government doesn't seem to have the will or the intestinal fortitude or the intelligence to really do anything significant about it.
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Is there a model we could follow? Is there another way? Of course there is. There are many other ways, there are many other approaches and there are many other jurisdictions around this world we could look at for example, some of them in the Scandinavian countries, where they do things differently, where they know that to pool money by way of taxes provides opportunity to people that will pay off in the long run. It creates stability in the economy and it gives people confidence, and people are investing in those jurisdictions, funnily enough.
Not too long ago the Catholic church became so concerned about this direction we are going in, this direction we seem to be choosing, which is more concerned about deficit fighting and interest rates and the value of the dollar and less concerned about people, that they put out a statement that they called Ethical Reflections and Political Choices.
Interjection: Read a section.
Mr Martin: I will. Here's a little piece of it for you:
"When we apply the beatitudes of the kingdom to our everyday reality - economic, political, social, cultural, religious - we make our own lives living parables. When our lives touch other lives in living parables, however modest - a helping hand, a willing ear, sharing our time and talents, coming together in mutual support and solace - we give hope to one another." Interesting concept.
"Two fundamental gospel principles: the preferential option for the poor and the special value and the dignity of human work" - something we should maybe think about as we consider the budget that was presented to us a week ago, as we consider the speech from the throne that we all heard here only a week ago.
Speaker, I ask you and the others present to please listen to the folks out there.
The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments?
Mr John O'Toole (Durham East): It's important that I respond to the comments made by the member for Sault Ste Marie. He mentioned the important contribution of the Irish to Ontario and he made some reference to their difficult struggles throughout time. It's important to remind the member to be here on Thursday morning for private members' session, when Bill 8 will be discussed, the Irish Heritage Day Act. It's to recognize the hard work and contribution of that particular culture not only to Ontario but indeed to Canada and throughout the world, actually. That's my private member's bill.
I say to the member that the NDP's contribution to the economy of Ontario that will be best remembered is the social contract, where they had almost pillaged every other ministry and every other expenditure and they couldn't wait to get their greedy hands on the contracts of hardworking Ontarians. They just whacked them. I think they will long remember the legacy they left to Ontario.
In contrast, the memory Ontario workers will have of the Conservative government is that we're giving them a tax break for the first time in the history of this province. Hardworking families are getting some of their earned dollars back to spend and to invest as they see fit.
But the most important legacy in this budget was in two critical areas: first, the commitments to health care, specifically the $1.2 billion to long-term care; and the other was the additional moneys committed to education, classroom spending and excellence. I think that will go down as a memorable contribution. Every Ontarian will benefit. Children, parents, all Ontarians will benefit from the changes in our budget.
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South): I have a comment to the member for Durham East. I too remember very well in the last week or so the commitment of $1.2 billion to long-term care. But we must remember that it wasn't in this budget; it's over an eight-year period. It's going to bring long-term-care beds up to about 1,000 less than what is needed this very day.
Earlier this evening the member for Nepean was commenting on my colleague from Scarborough-Agincourt's comments. I would ask the member for Nepean to look at the Ontario Provincial Auditor's report for 1991, on page 14, where he says: "Ontario has had only one surplus in the last 20 years, the year ended March 31, 1990."
I further point out to the member for Nepean that if he looks on page 56 of the Ernie Eves-Mike Harris 1998 budget, under "Ten-Year Review," it points out that in 1989-90 there was a surplus of some $90 million. If you don't believe the Provincial Auditor, the very least you could do is believe what your own Treasurer and finance minister says, and that was that in the last year of the Liberal mandate the surplus was $90 million. You'll find that on page 56 of your budget.
Mr Wildman: I want to congratulate my good friend from Sault Ste Marie on his presentation. I think it was interesting that he chose to look at the long, difficult and tragic history of the Irish people for parallels about what is happening in the so-called global marketplace we have today and what is happening in Ontario under this government. Essentially, he was trying to point out that the pursuit of profit on the part of those wealthy who controlled the Irish lands was continued even in the face of very difficult times. The Irish people were largely marginalized, pushed off their land and forced to emigrate to look for opportunities elsewhere, largely in North America but in other parts of the world as well.
I just returned with some of my colleagues from visiting Quebec City last week. We were in the vicinity of the quarantine island where unfortunately, as we all know, thousands of those Irish died of cholera, having crossed the ocean in terrible conditions, and are buried in what has now become a national park.
What my friend from Sault Ste Marie was saying is that we must not ever allow the pursuit of profit or even the worship of the so-called invisible hand of the marketplace to be so predominant that we don't respond to the needs of the vulnerable, the poor, the sick and those in need. This government has a tendency, every time they run into difficulties, to attack the poor. This is a government that believes the poor have too much wealth and the rich don't have enough, and that's why they're transferring wealth upwards in our society.
Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre): It's my pleasure to respond to the member for Sault Ste Marie and say that his 20-minute speech was a good speech, but it had nothing to do with the budget. I thought he might have wanted to talk about the fact that the provincial income tax rate in this province went from 58% of the federal rate down to 40.5% of the basic federal rate, which is the lowest personal income tax rate in all of Canada. I thought he might have wanted to talk about that and about the good news and positive effects it's had in his riding. But I know he gets his marching orders from his leader, and the marching orders are: "Don't talk about the good things happening in your riding. Let's not talk about the jobs being created there. Let's not mention the good news."
As we are discussing the budget right now, I was doing a little bit of research, looking at what had happened in previous budgets. I was looking through newspaper articles, and in all the newspaper articles across Ontario they spoke about lineups that were happening in this province with previous budgets: lineups for gasoline, lineups for cigarettes, lineups for alcohol and beer, and other sorts of lineups, because the people of Ontario believed that those governments were going to hike taxes across this province. You don't see those lineups and you haven't seen those lineups in the last three budgets brought forward by this government, because the people of Ontario know this government stands for tax cuts.
In fact, in this budget we'll see 36 tax cuts, 66 in total, and that's a far cry from the 65 tax hikes that were brought to us by the Liberal and NDP governments from 1985 to 1995, especially the NDP government, of which the member for Sault Ste Marie was a member, where we had 32 tax hikes which drove 10,000 jobs away from this province. What we've seen happen with our government is 341,000 new net private sector jobs created.
He also mentioned coffee shops and talking with people. I can tell you that the people in the coffee shops are very proud of our government. He ought to listen to what they had to say about his government. They were not very happy.
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The Acting Speaker: Member for Sault Ste Marie, you have two minutes to respond.
Mr Martin: The only thing that disappoints me more than what this government is doing, particularly to the poor and the middle-class workers in this province, is the fact that they don't understand, can't make the connections, that they don't see what they're doing, what's happening in their own communities - that they don't get it.
In my own community of Sault Ste Marie, unemployment has doubled since this government came to power. As I asked when I first started, why is it that at a time when, according to their budget, we are doing well in this province, when profits are being created, industry is working, we're hitting on all eight cylinders and the economy is booming according to all the indicators, we have to target so directly and so narrowly those among us who are most vulnerable? I don't understand that. I don't know why you have to do that. I don't know why the two go together and why it is that you're working in that way.
I said as well in my few moments this evening that there is another vision, another way of doing things, that there isn't only one alternative. I mentioned the statement by the Catholic bishops in 1983, Ethical Reflections and Political Choices. In that statement they very clearly suggest a number of short-term economic strategies as alternative approaches more in keeping with gospel values: Give priority to the fight against unemployment while not ignoring inflation; stem the rate of inflation equitably, not by putting the burden on low-income people; develop an industrial strategy to create real permanent employment in local communities; involve local communities in plans of coordinated action.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mrs Barbara Fisher (Bruce): I am pleased to have the opportunity to address the House tonight with regard to the 1998 budget, presented in this House just one week ago. We know that Ontario has turned the corner. In 1995 the people of Ontario elected this government with the clear mandate to reduce and eventually eliminate the deficit, and we're well on our way to doing that; to create a climate in Ontario where jobs and prosperity are available equally and to all people; to maintain the quality of life we enjoy in Ontario; and to ensure a healthy and secure future for our children.
Over the past three years we have made the necessary changes and have seen significant progress in the reduction of the deficit and the development of fiscal policies which have revitalized the economy of Ontario. We are now moving into a new phase of our mandate. All Ontarians have worked hard and shared in the difficult sacrifices which were necessary to restore the balance to the province's finances.
The 1998 Ontario budget is a welcome sign that the changes we have made are worth it. We all recognize that they haven't been easy, but we have tackled them and achieved because of them. We are now seeing the benefits.
Ontario's economy created 265,000 net new private sector jobs between February 1997 and February 1998. As a result, our unemployment rate fell again in March, to 7.4%. In my own riding of Bruce, the unemployment rate has continued to drop from 7.5% in 1994 to 6.6% in 1996.
Taxes in Ontario are falling. The government has cut taxes 30 times since 1995. The 1998 budget, presented last week in this House, proposes to cut them a further 36 times. Ontario leads the way in cutting taxes to help create jobs. In Bruce county, personal income tax cuts alone will amount to $22.5 million when fully implemented. It has been clearly proven that tax cuts increase domestic consumption. The deficit has fallen from $11.3 billion when we took office to $5.2 billion, which is $1.4 billion ahead of the target we set in last year's budget. This year's deficit is down to $4.2 billion. Our plan will ensure that the deficit is eliminated by the year 2000-2001.
While budgets are full of numbers, it is important to remember, as my colleague from Durham East has said, that budgets are really about people and their priorities. In my riding of Bruce, our economic future is facing a significant challenge, quite unlike some of the other ridings within Ontario today. The announcement by Ontario Hydro to lay up the Bruce A generating station came as a severe blow to the people of Bruce, who have depended upon Ontario Hydro to provide a stable and strong economic base. The potential loss of jobs to our area, ranging from 860 to 1,725, depending upon how severe this decision of Ontario Hydro is - and that includes Bruce and Grey and Huron and Perth and even some other surrounding areas - will significantly affect the local economy.
However, I strongly believe that this is the time for us in that area, in Bruce especially, to grasp an opportunity for economic diversification in the Bruce. We have tried many times in the past, but have been unsuccessful in having the type of partnership we need to have with that single industry, Ontario Hydro, to make that come to success. I hope now is the time for that to change.
There has never been a better climate in Ontario to stimulate new business growth. Interest rates are low and investment interest is high. Opportunities exist for redevelopment of the tourism industry. Several tourism marketing partners in Bruce and Grey have recently joined forces to promote Ontario's Sunshine Coast. This initiative will promote the tremendous tourism opportunities along the shores of Lake Huron, the Bruce Peninsula and the Georgian Bay triangle. The lay-up of Bruce A also creates an opportunity for public-private partnerships with Ontario Hydro and other industries such as those located in the Bruce Energy Centre.
As a government, we will be continuing to introduce competition into the electricity industry. From our perspective in my riding, that can't come soon enough. This will open the doors for private business to take a good hard look at such excellent sites as the BNPD site. Already, interest by British Energy and a more recent interest by the partnership of Contor and the Power Workers' Union are being considered. We know that many more out there have expressed an interest and look forward to consideration of those in the near future. Given the strong economy in the province today, I am confident that the Bruce community will not only adjust in the short term but will thrive in the long term when single-industry dependence will be something of a distant memory.
The agrifood industry in Ontario and in Bruce county is healthy and strong. We must build on this and expand it even further. I was pleased to be appointed parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs just about one year ago now and to be part of the new program development over the past year.
The Ontario Federation of Agriculture has indicated that the 1998 budget shows our government is not committed to agriculture. While it is true that the budget does not include everything the OFA had discussed and wanted from us, I believe that over the past three years this government has made very significant improvements in the agrifood sector. We reversed the trend developed by the previous government of cutting the OMAFRA budget. It is on the rise again, increasing it from $291 million last fiscal year to $340 million projected for fiscal year end 1998-99.
In the throne speech, we promised to act on the recommendations of the Rural Youth Advisory Panel. In the 1998 budget we promised $35 million in new money for a four-year rural youth job strategy. This is in addition, by the way, to a $30-million announcement last April with regard to the rural jobs strategy fund. That fund has had significant uptake, approval being presented through committee to the minister over the short term. We are expecting many projects, province-wide, to take place.
The agrifood sector will benefit from lower taxes, deficit reductions, infrastructure spending and Ontario's improved business climate. Working with the Ontario farmers over the past 12 months, we have brought the Act to protect Farming and Food Production, Bill 146, from discussion paper to third reading here just last week in one of the evening sessions. We have developed a $30-million rural jobs strategy fund. We have extended the sales tax rebate on farm building materials for a third year; this has saved Ontario farmers close to $9 million over the past two years. We have launched a summer job fund for rural students; already more than 1,000 positions have been secured for our rural youth. We have invested $40 million in agrifood research, more than the provinces of Quebec and Alberta combined. We have reformed the farm tax system, something the other governments weren't brave enough to do; it was easier to put it off. We reformed the farm tax system so that the farmers don't have to wait for a rebate. They have permanent knowledge that that mixup of education taxation with farm credits, in other words, is gone for good, and that the OMAFRA budget is no longer artificially inflated.
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With regard to education - the students of Kincardine district, Saugeen district, Sacred Heart, Bruce Peninsula district, Chesley district, Walkerton district, and Wiarton district - all the secondary school systems within the riding that I represent - deserve the same preparation for a lifetime of success as students in Alberta, Japan, Germany, New Brunswick, or almost anywhere else you can name in the world. Such was not the opportunity under the lack of funding formula by previous governments. Our budget has not forgotten thousands of young people who want to continue their education at a college or university.
A new Canada-Ontario millennium fund for students will combine federal and Ontario student loan spending to invest more than $9 billion in student assistance over 10 years. I heard members earlier talking about a longer-term plan. I think everybody can accept the fact that the short-term, knee-jerk reactions of the past to address today's problems weren't good for the long-term benefit of this province. While we are developing and presenting our plan before the province of Ontario today, there is a long-term vision. Tomorrow does matter, tomorrow being some 20 years out or better.
The Learning Opportunities Task Force will soon be reporting on ways to help students with learning disabilities attend college and university.
The government is moving into the next phase of our plan to convert welfare into work. More than a quarter of a million Ontarians are no longer dependent on welfare. In Bruce county, the Ontario Works program has been, and continues to be, a success. The number of general welfare assistance clients has dropped from 13,783 in 1994 to 8,553 in 1997. This is a reduction of almost 38%. At this time in Bruce county, 1,446 people are participating in the Ontario Works program.
This budget continues to offer a hand up to Ontarians who want to move from welfare to work. It includes a $9.5-billion workplace training and employment plan; a $25-million Learning, Earning and Parenting program to help single parents on welfare finish school; and a new Ontario child care supplement up to $1,020 per child under the age of seven for modest-income families.
With regard to health care, during our consultations with Ontarians over the past months, it has been made clear that Ontarians are concerned about health care. In terms of the people's voices that were heard in our riding, the rural Ontario health policy changes have been made because the government did listen. My colleagues have outlined in detail over the past week the additional funding for health care, which includes long-term-care beds, emergency services, community continuing care needs, and children with disabilities. Bruce and Grey counties will receive an additional $11.2 million for expansion of long-term care and community services.
In this budget, we have reiterated our commitment to support Ontarians concerned about community safety. I wish Mr Runciman were here tonight to hear this, as it's because of his good work of the past couple of years that this is now before us in a very proactive and positive way and we're moving forward with protection to persons.
As part of the government's five-year, $150-million commitment to enhance community safety, two initiatives have already been announced: Up to 1,000 new police officers will be hired in partnership with municipalities, and 115 OPP police cadets will be hired over the next 18 months to perform operational service support duties.
I recently had the pleasure of attending a retirement function for Staff Sergeant Al Neville of the Kincardine-Walkerton OPP detachment, who has retired after 30 years of service to the province and to the community. It is our responsibility to ensure that a lifetime of effort of peace officers such as Staff Sergeant Neville is not wasted. The men and women who protect us also look to government to provide the legislative framework and programs required to do their jobs.
The 1998 Ontario budget renews our pledge to the people of this province. Ontarians agree with the basics of what we're doing. Ontarians have also given us some very good advice on how we could do better on the specifics. We have heard that advice and we will use it as we move forward. Let us now continue to build on the progress we've made and make Ontario the cream of the Canadian crop and a leader in the world.
The Acting Speaker: Questions or comments?
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): I note with some regret that the member is so anxious to support her government that she's bought the spin lines they offer without asking some of the critical questions.
She knows particularly that there is a $9-billion new millennium scholarship fund contained within the budget. I wonder if she's been made aware of the fact that any new money in the new millennium scholarship fund came from the federal government and that it is their millennium scholarship fund this government is trying to hitch to in order to say it's increasing its funding for student assistance when there is no new money, not a single, solitary cent of new provincial government money, in this so-called new student assistance fund. In fact, the assistant deputy minister of education has informed student groups that they intend to decrease the spending for student assistance between now and the year 2000. They intend to take it down to about $410 million, a decrease of over $100 million. That is this government's idea of a new student assistance fund.
I wonder whether the member opposite would want to ask the Minister of Education, when he likes to talk about the fact that their government is spending more on student assistance than any previous government, whether it is true that this government has made university and college education so unaffordable for students - they have to pay more, they have to borrow more and they can't pay their debt at the end of graduation because their debt is so high - that the government has been forced to double what it covers in loan default payments, which is why that budget for student assistance looks high.
I wonder if she would like to know that the $300 million in additional new assistance that the Minister of Finance talked about in answering questions on the budget is actually the old money that was given for loan forgiveness which has been rolled into a new program that they want to call a grants program. There's no new money in it. It is simply a program with a new name, and it still sanctions government-supported loans and debts of $7,000 a year, which makes a debt of $28,000 for an undergraduate degree. And now we have deregulation on top of that.
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Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): I want to say to the member for Bruce that she amazes me when she gets up and talks about the area that I know very well and talks about that area as though everybody's happy, everybody's smiling, everything's great. She knows very well that's not the case. She knows that there are many, many apprehensive people who do not believe that this budget holds very much future for them, the people whose property taxes have risen dramatically because of this government's download, the people who depend on health care and don't know what the final decisions are going to be about the availability of health care in that rural area, the people who don't know what the future brings in terms of their children being able to go to university or college to build the skills they should have.
You make it sound as though it's a county that has no qualms about what you as a government have done to their future, to their social services, to their confidence and their stability. You know that's not the case, because I know you go home, I know you're there, and I know what you hear from people.
It is a very difficult thing to sit and keep a straight face when you go on using, as my colleague from Port Arthur said, the spin lines you've been handed, because they won't play on the main street of Kincardine or Wiarton. People know the reality of their lives and they don't trust this government to bring prosperity to them. They know and they hear from another member a very different story about what the reality is for them and they know that it rings much truer than the words from the member for Bruce.
Mr O'Toole: Indeed it's an honour and a privilege to respond to the member for Bruce's comments. I want to assure the people watching and the members here and all the people in the gallery tonight that there is no harder-working member in this House. I sat with her on the select committee on the review of Ontario Hydro Nuclear and know her commitment to her riding.
The member for Renfrew North today challenged the Minister of Finance with respect to the extraordinary write-off by Ontario Hydro this past fiscal year of $6 billion. I agree with many of the points he was making. But the member for Bruce is going through that. She's living through the loss of jobs of her constituents. I can tell you, you can read the passion. Watch her face, and you'll know what she means.
There is much this government is doing to help small business. She's talking about diversification, with the Bruce alternative power group that's trying to work. Our government over the next eight years is going to reduce by 50% the small business corporation tax. Think of this as a job creation tool. Think of the reduction of the employer health tax, a Liberal tax - we're eliminating it. We're challenged with the job of eliminating the Liberal taxes. Imagine 33 tax increases. When you think of the word "Liberal," you think of tax increases.
Our government is trying to work with the private sector, specifically small business. But what I really think of most is the hardworking family. I look at the $140 million that's being added to provide assistance for families with children under the age of seven, about $1,000 per child of tax relief. I think we're trying to help small business and families.
Mr Crozier: I would never question the hard work of this member because I think she shares the hard work that a lot of us do. But I say to the member for Bruce, don't insult the intelligence and the integrity of 37 farm organizations in this province that know you've decreased the agricultural budget. You can't count the community reinvestment fund as agriculture spending; that's municipal. You can't count ice storm spending as agriculture; that's not a program. You can't take credit for those.
When you tell them that you haven't decreased the agriculture budget, let me tell the member for Bruce, I have a list here of $85 million in reductions, not the least of which is the cancellation of the Niagara tender fruit lands program, $2.5 million; cuts to field services, $2 million; cuts to Foodland Ontario marketing program, marketing our great agricultural products here and abroad, $1 million; cuts to the agriculture investment strategy program, $1.5 million; cuts to the tile drainage program, $1.5 million; cuts to the University of Guelph research programs, $2 million; the labour adjustment announcement, $1.53 million in cuts; restructuring of agricultural programs, including field office closures, GRIP and NISA; cuts to the international marketing program, $8.3 million; eliminating ministry services, including requiring commodity groups to pay for administration, grading, enforcement and regulation, cuts to laboratory services, $31.3 million. The member for Bruce knows they've cut $85 million.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Bruce, you have two minutes.
Mrs Fisher: I appreciate the input from the opposition members, but it never ceases to amaze me that they just don't get it. They've had three years to figure out that tax increases and increased social spending don't work. They cannot figure that out.
I'd like to talk for a moment about my riding of Bruce as it relates to Ontario Hydro. A member opposite a few minutes ago said, "Talk about Kincardine, talk about the closures that we anticipate, talk about the job losses," almost in glee. He then mentioned the fact that a few years ago only, I was one of the community leaders, leading the community to their doors, his specifically, asking for assistance and for help, an awareness of what might happen if the nuclear program of our community failed. We got nothing. I got a closed door.
Mr Wildman: What do you get now?
Mrs Fisher: A lot more, thank you, sir.
Everybody recognizes that Ontario Hydro has a problem, but I will tell you one thing: Don't attribute it to the residents of the Bruce; attribute it to the records of past governments that interfered politically with the decision-making and how that has caused the grief and the debts we're experiencing today. Our community, to the honourable member, will rise to face this problem once again. We faced 708 job losses in my community because of that same member. Prior to that, somebody else hired a -
Mr Wildman: How many now?
Mrs Fisher: How many now? Thanks to everybody, 750, 860, potentially 1,725. But I will challenge you, and this government will stand to the challenge, because we're doing it now, finding a way to relieve that problem because of the mess in reduction in spending and reduction in commitments by management. We will recover the situation.
The Acting Speaker: Further debate?
Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): It's a pleasure for me to comment ever so briefly on the budget and the impact of the budget on northern Ontario. Let me start off, though, by complimenting the government. I'm going to compliment the government on the very slick packaging they have put together with this budget. It's very similar to the packaging on this particular piece that the member for St Catharines has talked about. What angers the member for St Catharines and our caucus is that this packaging is very self-serving. But it's slick: I want you to understand and I'm going to start off this debate by telling you that it's slick advertising. The fluff is nice, but what's inside the fluff certainly is not nice and it's especially not nice to the people of northern Ontario.
I was talking to a few of the Conservatives in Sudbury on the weekend because I wanted their reaction to the budget. They said, I think half in jest, that they wonder if Mike or Ernie has somebody in the printing business or in the layout business because of the amount of money this government is spending on packaging what, if it were so good, would be an easy sell.
Mr Wildman: You're not talking about Jim Gordon, are you?
Mr Bartolucci: No, I wasn't talking to Jim Gordon, as the member for Algoma has asked. He was out of town. But he would probably say the same thing, because he has criticized the government on so many occasions.
What is of concern to most of the people in Sudbury, in northern Ontario, is the lack of time that you've given the people of northern Ontario, that you've given the economy of northern Ontario, that you've given the concerns of northern Ontario and the strategies that are necessary to ensure that northern Ontario becomes a very viable and vibrant energy place to grow, to live and to do business in. That's not happening right now. It's as simple as that.
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The packaging of the budget is neat, the packaging of Mike Harris is neat, but I think the people of northern Ontario understand that it's basically fluff and are not going to be fooled by it.
I do want to talk, though, about last year's budget for a second because I believe it has an impact on the budget that was presented last week. In particular, I want to talk about the northern vehicle registration tax. You will know all about this tax because it was the only new tax that Mike Harris imposed on the people of Ontario last year. Mike Harris prides himself as the Taxfighter. I've heard various members say that tonight, whether they're in order or out of order, stand up and say, "My leader, our leader, the Premier of the province, is the Taxfighter," when in reality Mike Harris, the Premier, is the imposer of taxes.
Interjections.
Mr Bartolucci: They groan across the way, but the reality is that in the last budget the only new tax imposed was a tax imposed on the people of northern Ontario. He called it the northern vehicle registration tax. Across the way, they say it's a fee. Well, Mike Harris said, in a quote, "There is no difference between a user fee and a tax." So I must admit that I too am convinced when Mike Harris says a user fee is nothing else but a tax. Mike Harris introduced and implemented the only new tax in last year's budget on northern Ontario residents and it was called the northern vehicle registration tax.
Obviously there was an outcry from the people of northern Ontario. They were upset, as indeed they should be, when you consider that we have a Premier who supposedly is from northern Ontario, we have a finance minister who supposedly is from northern Ontario. These two individuals are supposed to understand the complexities of northern Ontario. We have this new tax imposed on northerners, this new tax that really doesn't understand the complexities of life in the north and the extra costs of operating a vehicle in northern Ontario.
For some of us who live in southern Ontario, southwestern Ontario or even eastern Ontario, that may seem to be a very small item, but let me tell you, when the cumulative effect of that takes place what we have is an enormous amount of money being drawn out of northern Ontario. One estimate is $15 million.In reality, it's much higher than that.
The people of northern Ontario became very angry and they asked the members in the Liberal caucus from northern Ontario how can they best put their views forward. We said, "Certainly through your members, regardless of what party they're in, but also, you might want to let Mike Harris know that you're not happy that Mike Harris, the Taxfighter, imposed this new tax on northern Ontario residents." So they started a postcard campaign and, lo and behold, the government has received thousands upon thousands upon thousands of postcards from people in northern Ontario saying: "This new tax is unacceptable. Please withdraw this new tax in your next budget. This new tax is unfair. Please withdraw this new tax in your next budget. This new tax doesn't reflect the extra cost of operating a vehicle in northern Ontario, Mr Premier. Please withdraw this new tax in your next budget."
I heard about this kinder and softer and gentler Mike Harris, the one who listens and hears, not just hears and never listens, or listens and never hears, but the speech from the throne gave this new caricature a new image. It is the Mike Harris who listens, who hears, who cares, who is kinder, who is gentler.
You know what? I thought: "I'm a pretty open-minded individual. I think I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he will have listened and heard what the people of northern Ontario said in thousands upon thousands upon thousands of postcards to the Premier and the finance minister when they were saying, `Mike Harris, if you hear us, you'll withdraw this northern vehicle registration tax,' the only new tax imposed on people in northern Ontario in last year's budget." But unfortunately Mike Harris didn't listen and we see with the budget this year that the northern vehicle registration tax is still in place, that this gouging of northern Ontario residents is still in place, that this lack of understanding about the extra cost of operating a vehicle in northern Ontario is still in place.
I'm a little disappointed. I'm not disgusted any longer, I'm not bewildered, but you know what? I am disappointed. I honestly thought that after two and a half years, almost three years, the government had understood that there is a difference between northern Ontario and the rest of Ontario; that an area that occupies approximately 87% of the total land mass and has approximately 10% of the population is going to have different needs than the rest of Ontario. But this budget does nothing to address the individual needs of the people in northern Ontario.
I looked through this budget very, very carefully. When I was having a post-mortem on the budget with the people from my riding, I wanted to ensure that I was very, very fair with the government and put forth what I considered to be an objective rather than a subjective point of view. I must tell the members across the way on the government side that there is nothing in this budget, absolutely nothing, that northern Ontario residents can be optimistic about.
I look at the title and I see "Jobs for the Future, Today." For northern Ontario it should be, "No Jobs Today; A Very Poor Future." If you were going to put a byline on this budget, that's what you would have to say this budget reflects for the people in northern Ontario.
Mr Baird: Rick always does look at the positive side of things.
Mr Bartolucci: In order to make a statement like the member for Nepean is making you have to be able to back it up with some facts. Otherwise you shouldn't make the statement.
Let's look at some of the facts that are real facts. I want to go to the Labour Market News bulletin. It is certainly based on all the criteria, all the numbers and all the facts found in northern Ontario. It's done by economists and it gives a good synopsis of what's happening in northern Ontario. Although there are some numbers attached to this - and I apologize to the people who may be watching out there because numbers sometimes are hard to follow - I believe the numbers are important to show not only the government members but anyone who may be listening and watching out there that the new budget, the slickly packaged 1998 Ontario budget is not working for the people of northern Ontario.
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First of all I want to talk about Ontario. You will know that in February 1998 there was a 7.9% unemployment rate. If everything is going so well, the unemployment rate should be dropping. But in March 1998 the unemployment rate went up to 8.2%. Let's see how that reflects on Sudbury. I believe the 8.2% is an important number. In March 1997, one year ago, there was a 10% unemployment rate in Sudbury. The budget was presented. In February 1998, there was an 11.1% unemployment rate. With the great Tory policies we have in the budget, the unemployment rate grew by 1.1%. Let's deal with March 1998, because maybe there was a change, maybe there was some hope for northern Ontario residents. If we look at the unemployment rate, we find that has gone up to 12.1%. I tell the members across the way that something is wrong because the unemployment rate in Sudbury has steadily climbed over the course of the last year and a half.
But maybe Sudbury is a little different than the rest of northern Ontario. Let's go to northeastern Ontario.
Mr Wildman: It's the same in the Sault.
Mr Bartolucci: We'll get to the Sault in a second, member for Algoma.
In northeastern Ontario we see it was 12.1% in April 1997. In March 1998, the unemployment rate went up to 13.3%. If that isn't bad enough, the unemployment rate for the month of April, the month we've just finished, was 13.4%. That's northeastern Ontario.
Let's go to northern Ontario, because northern Ontario covers northeastern and northwestern Ontario. We on this side of the House know that. We found out last Thursday that the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing isn't quite sure where northeastern Ontario is and where northwestern Ontario is. We want to assure him tonight that northeastern and northwestern Ontario are both in northern Ontario.
Let's look at the numbers for northern Ontario. We see that the numbers for northern Ontario are rather interesting as well, because in April 1997 there was an 11.8% unemployment rate. In March 1998, there was a 13% unemployment rate, and last month alone, there was a 13.2% unemployment rate. I suggest to you that Sudbury is no different than any other area in northeastern Ontario, Sudbury is no different than any other area in northern Ontario.
Let me talk for a second about Sault Ste Marie. Recently I was part of a presentation that dealt with what's happening to the construction industry in Sault Ste Marie. There's big concern up there. I know the member for Brampton North, who has very close relatives up there, knows there is concern on the part of his family, his friends and the people of Sault Ste Marie with regard to the construction industry and the unemployment rate. I should tell you that the unemployment rate in Sault Ste Marie in March 1998 was 19.6%. That's more than double the average in Ontario. That is unacceptable. It's unacceptable in Sault Ste Marie; it's unacceptable in Sudbury; it's unacceptable in Thunder Bay; it's unacceptable in Kenora; it's unacceptable in Algoma-Manitoulin; it's unacceptable in Algoma; it's unacceptable in Timmins and in Timiskaming; in fact, it's completely unacceptable.
I have to tell the government members, and I hope they're listening, that the reality is that your fiscal policies in northern Ontario are not working.
Mr Baird: Are they working in southern Ontario?
Mr Bartolucci: I'm sure someone should be giving the member for Nepean his soother, because the member for Nepean is almost out of control and obviously hasn't had his daily feeding.
Let me tell you, the policies of this government should be working for all Ontarians. That's what the Premier says when he stands up, that's what the finance minister says when he stands up and that's what the members across the way have been saying since this budget debate began: "More jobs are being created. There is more growth in Ontario."
Statisticians, economists, those who study the market will tell you it is not working in northern Ontario. You might want to be concerned about that, because the Common Sense Revolution is a disaster for the people in northeastern Ontario and for the people in northwestern Ontario.
Well, then, we should have some type of strategy in place to ensure that this erosion of northern Ontario stops. The solution is quite simple: Start supplying some stimulus to the economy in northern Ontario. Start understanding that northern Ontario requires special consideration. Start understanding that a part of northern Ontario's growth is based on government jobs, that every time you take a government job away from a city, a town or a village in northern Ontario, what you are doing is hurting the economy of that city, town or village. Regardless of what you might want to say as a total package, the budget that was presented by your government, by the Premier and by the finance minister, is not in the best interests of the people of northern Ontario.
We had a very good history lesson earlier on from the member for Sault Ste Marie, and I only wish more people had spent a little bit of time listening to the sincerity of that presentation. But if you want to look at history, do understand that the wealth of Ontario first started because of the natural resources industries that are based in northern Ontario, those being mining and forestry. So when you stand up here and say, "Jobs for the Future, Today," I want you to understand that your plan is not creating jobs for the future, today; your plan, your budget, is creating unemployment in northern Ontario.
We as opposition members cannot, must not and will not allow you to do that without a very vocal opposition. I suggest to you that there are members here on this side of the House who would be very eager to sit down with the government to devise a strategy for northern Ontario that works, because I'll tell you and statistics will tell you that this budget doesn't do it. You're treating northern Ontario with a great deal of disrespect, and that we will remember at the next election.
The Acting Speaker (Mr Bert Johnson): Comments and questions?
Mr Pouliot: I too listened intently to the remarks by the member for Sudbury. If you live up north, he's quite right, you didn't see it in the Common Sense Revolution, but we now have an extra sticker, $37 per annum per vehicle in northern Ontario. Yet you would know that we pay so much at the pump. This was going to be a bit of a tradeoff. It was symbolic, and there were a few dollars attached to it.
We pay more for property taxes because of the downloading, more user fees, again because of the government. It's not reflected in the budget speech.
Let's talk about the budget speech. Page 11: "We are investing more than $820 million in 1998-99 to upgrade Ontario's highways, including our northern highway network." That's the budget speech. The revelation, the truth, is in the budget book, page 55: Transportation - that's capital, that's mortar - $849 million for 1998-99. That's $301 million less than the previous year and 50% of what was spent when we were the government during a recession. So talk to me about improving the quality of life through highways.
The same can be said of many ministries: Community and Social Services, $31 million to $20 million. The environment: At one time, 1994-95, $271 million; last year, $100 million; this year, $51 million.
They're turning their back. They're not spending the money on capital expenditures, not spending the money on programs, on operating expenses, and yet they're borrowing every cent every day of every year to supplement the tax cut.
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Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East): I'm pleased to respond briefly to the comments from the member for Sudbury, who I guess in his zeal to try and suggest to his voters, pander to their special interests up there, would have us believe they don't share the same common interest as every other Ontarian, that they won't benefit from the extraordinary increase in growth in this province, the extraordinary increase in investment, the 70,000 new housing starts in the month of March, record car sales, the highest level of consumer confidence in the history of Ontario, the highest level of business confidence in over 10 years.
I guess I'd have to ask, if his riding alone isn't seeing all of that, how is that a reflection on the member and his ability to make sure that what the rest of the province is seeing as extraordinary growth, leading all of Canada, also applies in the riding of Sudbury?
I know that there have been cuts to 66 taxes now, contrasted to the 65 tax increases in your five years and the five years of the NDP.
I'm sure that every business in your riding will appreciate the elimination of the employer health tax for the smallest 88% of all businesses. I'm sure they'll appreciate the stimulus that putting more dollars in people's pockets has made.
But let's talk about northern initiatives. Let's talk about rebuilding Highway 11 and Highway 69 and the Trans-Canada that your two governments neglected to the point that it was a cowpath. I was ashamed in 1994 to drive from Sudbury to Sault Ste Marie. I was ashamed of what the province of Ontario had allowed its infrastructure to deteriorate to.
The bottom line is that we've restored the northern heritage fund. We've restored full funding to road projects, as well as stimulating all this other growth.
Maybe the member from Sudbury-OECTA should reflect on those benefits as well.
Mr Miclash: I can assure the member for Scarborough East that the diatribe is not selling in northern Ontario, in northwestern Ontario. Every time you get up, we seem to raise a point in the polls in northern Ontario, and I have to agree with that.
The member for Sudbury indicated about the postcard campaign. It was a campaign that was responded to by hundreds and hundreds of my constituents as well to indicate that the Mike Harris government does not recognize the difference of northern Ontario when it comes to our highways, our lack of a public transportation system, our higher gas prices. At one time a government did recognize that in terms of lifting the vehicle registration fee from northern drivers. Now we've had Mike Harris just reintroduce that vehicle registration fee to indicate to us that he in no way recognizes the uniqueness of what we in the north and northern Ontario face.
The member indicated the higher rates of unemployment in northern Ontario, again something this government just refuses to recognize. It refuses to recognize that northern Ontario is not benefiting as we have across the rest of the province and that we do face such things as higher unemployment rates.
Just the other morning during the private members' business we had the member for Oxford get up and read a good number of headlines regarding the budget. As I indicated to him, unfortunately he didn't read the northern press, because he would never have found those headlines regarding the budget in any part of northern Ontario, again feeling very left out when it comes to this government making decisions, this government taking a look at how northerners are surviving in this province.
Again, I would just like to congratulate the member for Sudbury for pointing out some of these very realistic facts that we face as northern members in northern Ontario.
Mr Wildman: I want to congratulate the member for Sudbury for raising a large number of issues that relate specifically to the problems in northern Ontario. I want to point out that in the responses this evening we have seen, unfortunately, the complete lack of understanding on the part of the government members across the way of the situation in northern Ontario.
The fact is this: There is higher unemployment now in northern Ontario than there was when this government came into power. The fact is that in Sault Ste Marie, as the member for Sudbury mentioned, there is double the unemployment rate of the whole province.
We all know that when this party was in government, we responded to the concerns and the problems in the recession in Sault Ste Marie, in Kapuskasing and in other areas by assisting in restructuring and preserving jobs. This government does not believe in that. As a matter of fact, Mr Long, an adviser to the Premier, said that if they had been the government in 1992, there would have been no Algoma Steel deal. He made it quite clear. I congratulate him for being honest, but the fact is that there would have been 5,000 people out of work in Sault Ste Marie, direct jobs, and you can imagine the spinoff that would have produced.
The other reason that unemployment has increased substantially since this government came to power in northern Ontario is the cuts to the public sector, the cuts to transportation, natural resources. Natural resources has gone from $478 million in 1994-95 to $388 million in operating; it has gone from $54 million in capital to $29 million. That is most obvious in the small communities in northern Ontario. The cuts to natural resources, MTO and other public services have caused the increasing unemployment rate in northern Ontario, and the government across the way doesn't understand.
The Acting Speaker: The member for Sudbury has two minutes to respond.
Mr Bartolucci: I'd like to thank the members for Nipigon, Kenora and Algoma for your intelligence in trying to respond to my presentation, and to respond to the member for Scarborough East on his two-minute diatribe.
If the member for Scarborough East would keep his ears open and his mouth shut during my presentation, he might know that I was speaking about northern Ontario, not only Sudbury. Let's see. He talked about housing starts: down 64% in Sault Ste Marie. He talked about highway reconstruction and Highway 69: cancelled the environmental assessment. He talked about the highway between Sudbury and the Sault: no construction, no reconstruction, no upgrading over the course of the last two and a half years.
Let's talk about special interests. You want to believe there are special interests in northern Ontario. We've got to ensure -
Mr Joseph Spina (Brampton North): That is a lie. That is an outright lie.
The Acting Speaker: Member from Brampton, take your seat, please.
Mr Wildman: On a point of order, Speaker: I recognize your difficulty in that the member for Brampton North was not in his seat. You called him to order and asked him to take his seat, but I distinctly heard the member accuse another honourable member in this House of a falsehood.
The Acting Speaker: Does the member for Brampton North wish to withdraw?
Mr Spina: I withdraw the comment, Speaker.
The Acting Speaker: Thank you. The member for Sudbury, continue, please.
Mr Bartolucci: He will know that any construction that took place between the Sault and Sudbury was already in place and it was simple resurfacing.
Let me tell you as well that the member for Scarborough East, when he comes to northern Ontario and visits northern Ontario -
Mr Gilchrist: Almost every month.
Mr Bartolucci: - is quoted in the paper as understanding nothing about northern Ontario, absolutely ignorant about northern Ontario. That's why northern Ontarians don't support the Conservative government.
Mr Gilchrist: When was the last time you were in Scarborough?
The Acting Speaker: Order. I would ask the members to try to address their comments through the Speaker and try to make them just a wee bit softer so they won't encourage others to react to them, if I could do that, please.
Further debate?
Mrs Boyd: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Through you to my colleagues on the other side of the House, one always knows that when the members of this government start shouting down honourable members on this side, the honourable members on this side must in fact have hit a nerve, and that's what we're seeing tonight. I must say that for a government that wants to try and portray to the people of Ontario a lot of confidence about this budget, this nonsense that is going on on the other side certainly cuts into their credibility.
I feel very strongly that all of us should look very carefully behind the glitz and the packaging of this budget to see what it really means not just today, not just this year, but for many years in the future.
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One of the ironies is that we hear this government out there trying to sell to the people of Ontario that the reason the people of Ontario are unhappy with what the government is doing is that the government isn't communicating well enough what it is doing. Frankly, that's one of the biggest laughs that has happened over the last three years, because this government has amazing ability to spin its news in the direction it wants people to believe, and it has an amazing capacity to make bold-faced statements which are completely watered down by the reality.
One of the best examples is this much-ballyhooed $1.2 billion that they're going to put into long-term care over eight years, over at the very least one election period and probably two, making a promise that they know no government can make when they're in the third year of their term: to tie the funding to that kind of long lead time.
One of the realities is that long-term care is in desperate need now, not eight years from now. The minister has consistently refused to confirm how much money will flow in what year. Oh yes, the government may say the RFPs are out to the big contractors, to those who may build some of these facilities. That's true, the RFPs are out. That doesn't guarantee any of that money will be spent because again and again we have seen this government making an announcement, going into a process, not ever announcing who won the process, changing its mind, going back, going forth, and what do we find at the end? Not one cent spent.
That has happened again and again, and not just in the health ministry. The Ministry of Community and Social Services: There is this much-ballyhooed $40 million for child care that has been announced the first year, reannounced the second year, and now reannounced and folded in with federal money to try and make an impression in the third year.
I think most people who are political creatures out there really look at this as an election budget. It is very reminiscent, actually, of the Liberals' budget in 1989-90, very reminiscent of what they were telling the people of Ontario was the financial situation and their projections into the future. One of the things that is very clear about that is that a lot of things weren't counted and lot of things were flowed in a different way than they were announced. That is what we're seeing in this budget.
I'm looking here at a whole lot of funds that have no real substance to them. There's a contingency fund, for example, under Management Board Secretariat of $830 million; a special circumstance fund, also under Management Board, $77 million. Health care restructuring: They tell us they spent $970 million in 1996-97 and $880 million in 1997-98, when everyone knows the only dollars that were flowed out of that restructuring fund so far have been the $154 million that was really spent to pay severance fees for all those health care workers who lost their jobs under restructuring.
It's not just, as the member for Scarborough-Agincourt suggested, an accounting system that tends to push money around from one year to another. Now you see it, now you don't. Here's the smoke, here's the mirrors, where's the money? That's very much what we're seeing, a real shell game.
One of the things this government kept saying in the first couple of years was how important it was for public services to be run like businesses. One of the first things they did was to set out a business plan for this and a business plan for that, and to demand that school boards, municipalities and agencies getting government money had a business plan. Quite frankly, they don't make the same demand of themselves. They pay little attention to concrete business plans when it doesn't suit their political desire.
Let me give you an example. It's one of those examples we really need to hear about in terms of this government's claims about what it is doing versus the reality of what it is doing. The much-ballyhooed Health Services Restructuring Commission, this supposedly arm's-length body, this wonderful commission set up by Bill 26, was to go through the province and rationalize health care services. The government said, "Oh no, it's not us who are closing hospitals." Remember the Premier day after day standing there saying, "It's not us who are closing hospitals; it's the commission that's closing hospitals"? Right?
Mr Preston: You guys closed beds.
Mrs Boyd: The reality of the situation for thousands and thousands of people in this province is that there has been a substantial alteration in the availability of health care services. There had been substantial change even before the final reports of that health restructuring commission. Why? Because in the past two budgets this government has withdrawn over $650 million from hospitals while requiring them to do this massive restructuring.
Mr Preston: We reinvested it.
Mrs Boyd: The person who continues to heckle from the other side says, "We reinvested that money," but every analysis of the public accounts shows that money has not yet been reinvested. The $170 million that was announced and announced and announced over the last three years to go into long-term care, into home care, was a farce. It was not spent; in fact, $5 million less was spent the first year and only about $100 million of that over the whole term.
Mr Preston: Chicken feed.
The Acting Speaker: Member for Brant-Haldimand, come to order.
Mrs Boyd: Chicken feed is right, chicken feed to what is needed and what the Health Services Restructuring Commission has said is needed in absolutely every community.
One would have assumed that if this so-called arm's-length commission was doing this work and making these orders to these hospitals, we would see the health ministry respecting the advice they gave them about restructuring in other sectors, but that hasn't proved to be the case at all. Communities all over this province are feeling the effects of having those millions of dollars taken out of the health services in their communities and not reinvested.
It is scant comfort to those people when the government says, "Oh, that's all right, because some time over the next eight years we're going to put $1.2 billion back." It doesn't help the seniors who are not getting the services they need. It doesn't help the disabled who are not getting the services they need. It doesn't help the people who are being released from hospital, sicker and quicker, to go home and find no services available in their communities, and that's what's happening.
The government comes out with these grandiose statements about how they are spending more in health care than any other government has ever spent, and then of course they get caught on it, because in 1992-93 it was $1,668 per person and in your budget document you claim that the $1,639 per person you are spending now is the most. You may not have much respect for the public education system, but it's amazing how the people of Ontario actually learned to add and subtract. When they actually hear the numbers and know the numbers don't add up, they get a little suspicious. The penny may not have dropped all the way yet, but I think you will find that it does.
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The other issue around this great restructuring of health care is that it is a highly corporatized effort. What is happening is that those hospitals that were community-based, that had community input and were truly responsive to their communities have gradually lost that ability to govern themselves. We've seen the closures of hospitals.
Ottawa is a good example where the community-based Riverside Hospital is kaput, gone, completely finished, whereas the big teaching hospitals, the huge corporate teaching hospitals get all the services, gather them unto themselves and become a huge conglomerate corporation, not community-based, not publicly accountable in the way that people in their communities expect their hospitals to be.
Just last week the Prince Edward County hospital, which had pleaded to maintain its community base and its community governance, was told by the restructuring commission: "No, you've got to go into an agreement with the North Hastings health care system and the Belleville hospital and the Trenton hospital. You've got to get into one corporation."
The restructuring commission was rather sensitive to the very strong moves the community had made, and in fact in their instructions to the mediator, the facilitator for this creation of a new corporation, very clearly instructed that there needed to be some local control over some issues, that there needed to be real consideration for the fact that the Prince Edward County hospital was a very important entity in a community that is somewhat isolated.
But it's not surprising, seeing what people have seen in other areas, that there is some suspicion about whether or not the facilitator will be able to ensure the integrity of the Prince Edward County hospital. After all, in Pembroke the restructuring commission ordered the facilitator to develop a plan which would see a community base to the board of the general hospital which would be inclusive of the population in that area. There are deep concerns in that Renfrew area that that broad representation that would protect the health care services people had worked to build will not happen.
Another example is the situation in Northumberland county. I'm sorry the member for Northumberland isn't here because I really would have wanted to hear his response to a situation which appears on the surface quite puzzling to most people. If we have a restructuring commission and a government that are focused on the most businesslike plan for restructuring hospitals, the interim orders of the restructuring commission are completely unintelligible. The restructuring commission, without ever talking to the people of Port Hope, came up with a plan whereby the Cobourg hospital would be the one hospital in the area and the Port Hope hospital would be closed.
Given the larger population in Cobourg, that may not be a surprise, until you know that in business terms it was a bad choice. The Cobourg hospital is in downtown Cobourg, very hard to access, a building that was built in 1911, I believe - the core building. It has no air-conditioning in its operating rooms. It has very little head space so there's very little room to put ducting in. It's very awkward in terms of access for those who have disabilities. It has grown like Topsy and a bit higgledy-piggledy. Whereas the Port Hope hospital was built in 1964 with dollars raised in the community, very clearly a forward-thinking community that built that hospital near Highway 401, on about 40 acres of land, built it so that it could easily have all the footings in for a second storey to be added, a second storey that would have met the needs of the population of Northumberland.
I know that the politics of this, a little like the politics in Thunder Bay, are that Northumberland's Health Care Corp hopes that it can persuade the government into buying a whole new hospital. Their representations to the restructuring commission suggested it would cost only about $10 million to refurbish the Cobourg hospital, whereas it was admitted that it would cost about $19 million to build the second storey on the Port Hope hospital. Of course, a brand-new facility, which was what the corporation really wanted, would cost about $41 million.
Everybody in Northumberland county would be delighted to have a brand-new, state-of-the-art hospital, whether they live in Cobourg or whether they live in Port Hope. They've accepted that there should be only one hospital and they'd all be delighted. But you know, the people of Northumberland county are pretty canny people. They're quite businesslike themselves. They say to themselves, "Why would we spend $41 million on a brand-new hospital when for half that we could have a facility that would meet all the needs of the community, that's accredited for trauma, that has air conditioning, that is able to expand in terms of ancillary health care issues like long-term care because of the land around it?"
They wonder why the government would be even considering either of the other alternatives: a brand-new hospital or refurbishing a hospital that they all know within 10, certainly 20 years would have to be completely rebuilt anyway. Why would you put that kind of money into that sort of facility?
All over the province people are asking the whys about these decisions. They're asking why a government that keeps talking about business practices has such bad business practices itself. If you look at the family support plan debacle, was that good business practice? Obviously not. You destroy the service and then you scramble to try and build it up. I'm amused every time I see the ad appear in the paper yet again for somebody else, perhaps another 100 somebody elses, to try and deliver the services in this completely unbusinesslike Family Responsibility Office.
All over the province people are starting to say, if they're making this kind of bad choice, if what we're seeing is them scrambling to try and plug the hole in their public policy, being forced to change their minds when they are shown to have been bad business planners: "I know they were wrong about that. How can I trust that they're right, that the robust growth of the economy is somehow going to trickle down to me?" There are lots of people to whom the robust economy is not trickling down, more every day. It's very clear that this government has no sympathy for those who are losing out.
The Acting Speaker: Questions and comments?
Mr Baird: I would indicate to my colleagues in the official opposition that this party gets two responses and the best is yet to come.
I would just comment on the remarks by my colleague the member for London Centre. They certainly were thoughtful remarks on a whole series of initiatives and as they relate to the budget.
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She asked a series of questions that in her view come from the public, asking why we would pursue the health care policy that we pursue. I would say very directly to her that the reason we pursue that policy is that for 10 years the solution to health care funding was to close 10,000, 11,000 beds in the province. There was never the courage to close a single hospital. In my community of Ottawa-Carleton, they closed more than 800 beds over 10 years, and we had a considerable number of resources going towards administration, going towards the infrastructure that supported those beds. When she asked why, in relation to Northumberland, the government would change directions on health care policy, it's that we believe the direction the Ontario government was going in was the wrong direction. We wanted to do a demonstrably better job.
Change isn't easy. I suppose it would have been easy to do nothing, but that was indeed the policy the two previous governments had pursued. That has already freed up more than $1 billion, $1.2 billion for expansion of the long-term care beds, which is important.
She also discussed the way the government does business. We in this party looked at the way the previous government did business and thought that it led to less hope and less opportunity for the future of the next generation in the province. We saw the way the past two governments had done business, the way that the job creation led to the highest child poverty rate this province had ever seen. We think we can do better. We think that by encouraging the private sector to create jobs, there will be more hope and more opportunity for the future, that more jobs will be created, fewer people living in poverty, and that will be good for the people of Ontario.
We're not satisfied. We've got to redouble our efforts and work harder to do better, because as long as there is one person looking for a job in Ontario, we've got a substantial amount of work to do.
Mr Michael A. Brown (Algoma-Manitoulin): I want to comment on the fine speech of the member for London Centre. I'm really pleased that she raised the issues of health regarding this budget. I get letter upon letter from patients who are saying that waiting lists are getting way too long. I just had a phone call from a physician in the constituency who has had to cancel clinics in a community for two months because of bureaucratic ineptitude.
The patients in my constituency are concerned about the health care policies of this government. We have seen beds closed at an alarming rate in the constituency over the past three years.
Mr Baird: What about over the past 13 years?
Mr Michael Brown: In the past three years. We used to build hospitals in my riding.
I have seen the reports from the Manitoulin Health Centre about what they're saying they will be forced to do this coming year to provide patient care. They are going to have to cut patient services directly. They have cut everything else. The next thing to go is services. That's what we hear from Elliot Lake, that's what we hear from Espanola.
Do you know what your long-term-care announcement means in the Sudbury-Manitoulin district? That means in the next two years, despite the literally hundreds of beds that have been taken out of the system as a whole, you're going to put in 30 beds. Two years from now we will have 30 additional beds if we're lucky. That will not cut it. I had a gentleman from Toronto in my office three days ago who was concerned because his sister was going to have to be moved from Espanola hospital to a Toronto nursing home. That is just unacceptable.
Mr Wildman: I want to congratulate my friend from London Centre on her thoughtful remarks, particularly as they relate to health care, and the numbers and the fact that they don't add up in the budget. She indicated and demonstrated a breadth of knowledge that is really admirable. I would raise a couple of points that her remarks stimulated me to think about.
First, the $1.2 billion that the government touts for reinvestment in long-term care is over eight years. The first beds will not come on stream until the year 2000. The government itself admits that there is a serious backlog in terms of the need for long-term care as the population ages, the need for nursing care beds in many communities across Ontario. There is an enormous backlog. As a result of that we have patients inappropriately housed in beds that should be used for other purposes. For instance, we have chronic care patients in acute care beds. That causes backups in emergency wards, and we have the horror stories we've seen in southern Ontario.
The promise of these beds over eight years raises a number of questions, particularly in our area. The question about the beds that are promised for the district of Algoma is, when will they come on stream and how will they be distributed? Will the retirement community of Elliot Lake receive the beds that it needs now? We are told that if 50 beds were established now, they would be filled in three days. That's an enormous need. When will that need be met for the retirement community of Elliot Lake?
Mr Gilchrist: I too would like to congratulate the member for London Centre. Her comments are always thoughtful and articulate. While I disagree with some of the content, I always appreciate her sincerity in delivering them. It is a stark contrast, when I keep hearing stories about the health care issues that supposedly afflict only the opposition ridings, when I look at Scarborough and I look at the fact that Centenary hospital had three empty floors for the first 30 years of its history, now that we are in government, now that there's a new change in the approach to delivering health care and making sure that services are distributed where they're needed, every floor is filled. The two floors in Scarborough General that were empty on the day we were elected are filled as well. There's a new dialysis ward to deal with the 200 dialysis patients who never had any service in Scarborough before; there's a new MRI going into Scarborough General; there's a 288-bed expansion at Providence Centre.
The reality for the one twentieth of the province that lives in the old city of Scarborough, by any objective criteria, is that health care has gotten much, much better. People can see with their own eyes a government that cares by investing in the most modern equipment, by investing in more doctors and nurses in those specialties that see higher demand, particularly in areas like asthma, cancer and cardiac. The bottom line: We're not closing beds indiscriminately as the previous two governments did. They closed 9,000 beds. We're reinvesting the dollars we're saving by shutting down the half-empty buildings, have stopped paying for administrators and heat and light and are putting those dollars where they matter: on equipment and personnel to deal with the health care concerns of all Ontarians.
The Acting Speaker: The member for London Centre has two minutes to respond.
Mrs Boyd: The member for Scarborough East always sets himself up as such a target that it doesn't feel very good to go after him. Of course you've looked after your own riding, member for Scarborough East. But what about the people who depended on Wellesley Hospital, the people who depended on Northwestern General Hospital, Branson Hospital? What about the people at Doctors Hospital? You looked after yourself. There are lots of people who have seen their hospitals disappear.
Our party has not said that we should not be closing some of these buildings and consolidating services. There are members who know that I have been supportive of many of the changes that have happened. But when you make decisions based on politics, not on good health care business, then I get worried. When we see the Health Services Restructuring Commissions stop dead in its tracks because the member for Lambton got all upset about the Petrolia hospital and rethink the whole thing, then we know that you didn't do the kind of planning and forethought you should have done around health care restructuring. You haven't moved forward on primary care. It's one of the most serious issues for people, where they enter the system.
Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener): This just happened now? Where were you when you were in government?
Mrs Boyd: I must say, Mr Speaker, that you appear to have lost control of at least one of your members here. I will say very clearly that the changes that needed to happen should have been thought out and planned in a sequential manner that made sense. You didn't do that. You are still allowing the OMA to block primary care reform because they're your buddies and they get all the cream out of the system.
The Acting Speaker: I just want to remind everybody that you are not my members. I would ask you to once again address your comments through the Speaker.
The Chair recognizes the member for Halton Centre.
Mr Terence H. Young (Halton Centre): I'd like to ask agreement to share my time with the member for Huron.
The Acting Speaker: Is it agreed? It is agreed.
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Mr Young: This budget marks a transition for Ontario away from restructuring and downsizing to managing and renewing our priorities. After 10 years of mismanagement, weak leadership, flip-flops on issues and priorities, social engineering, rampant spending of borrowed money and 65 tax increases, Ontario had a dysfunctional economy and a demoralized society. We were technically bankrupt and had been so balkanized into special interest groups by the Liberals and NDP that many Ontarians had lost their tolerance and sense of duty to each other as individuals, with every group for themselves.
Five levels of government, if you include school boards, had taxed and spent and taxed and spent Ontario into the highest-taxed jurisdiction in North America. What did that mean to the average family? It meant that over two thirds of their family income was confiscated in various and numerous taxes, disallowing them the opportunity to take responsibility for their own future.
Families with combined incomes of over $60,000, $80,000 and even $100,000 were paying a mortgage, raising their children and having no way to save for their children's university education, their retirement or even a family vacation, because there was simply no money left over at the end of the month. These hardworking Ontarians were not defeated, but they were demoralized and they were depressed.
The frightening thing is that the NDP and Liberals didn't get it in 1995 during the election and they still don't get it now. Mr Hampton, the leader of the NDP, has promised to raise taxes back to where they were if his party becomes the next government. This is the politics of division and envy. It certainly doesn't appeal to the best in people.
Mr Hampton needs the people to need him to improve their quality of life. He doesn't say to Ontarians: "You can do it yourselves. You can be the best. You can earn more by working hard, by going back to school, by using your talents, by taking a chance on yourself. You can build Ontario by investing yourself and your money right here." Instead, he tells the people of Ontario: "You need me to increase taxes from your fellow citizens who have been successful. I'll increase welfare. I'll give you more free stuff."
I heard Mr Hampton on TVO yesterday. He was criticizing our government for reducing services to those in need. This, from a former minister in a government that laid off thousands of nurses and stopped giving over 240 drugs previously given free to those in need. On the other hand, my government has increased those drugs by over 400 and we're creating thousands of new jobs for nurses in communities with a $1.2-billion investment in long-term care.
Mr Hampton says: "I'll get more for you. I'll be your Robin Hood. I'll take from the rich and give to the poor." But what is "rich" to Mr Hampton? Any family that earns over $60,000 a year. Mr Hampton thinks it's greedy to earn more than $60,000 a year in a family.
We've seen what happens when you convince people that they'll never succeed and tax and tax those who are succeeding. In five years under the NDP there was not one new job created. In fact, we went backwards.
The Liberals, on the other hand, are trying to prove an oft-repeated saying originally coined by President Abraham Lincoln: "You can't fool all of the people all of the time." Mr McGuinty has claimed for two years that our tax reductions only help the rich, which is absolutely untrue. He has ranted and raged against any tax cuts. "The Tories are hurting Ontario," he says. "How dare they give people their own money back?" Yet yesterday, on TVO, I saw Mr McGuinty say out loud quite clearly, when he was asked what he would do with taxes if he were Premier, "Oh, you can't raise taxes."
Don't miss this, because this ranks as the biggest flip-flop, the biggest ruse by the Liberals in many years in Ontario. This is the beginning of the most overt subterfuge since "We're going to get rid of the GST." This starts the most cynical ploy since "We're going to stop free trade." This starts the myth the Liberals intend to campaign on during the next election, just as their federal colleagues did before the 1992 federal election: "We care the most. We'll never cut health care or education funding." Then they cut health care and education funding by $2.4 billion a year to Ontario alone.
Mr McGuinty portrays himself as a caring socialist to some audiences: "The tax cut is bad. How terrible. What rascals the Tories are." That's one face. To others, he's a born-again Tory: "The tax cut was the right thing to do. If elected, I'll maintain it. You can't increase taxes." That's his other face.
Dalton can fool some of the people all of the time, for instance his own caucus, but he can't fool all of the people even some of the time. So far we've seen a man of two minds, with two faces. We're beginning to wonder if Dalton McGuinty doesn't have a twin brother.
Ironically, Dalton was recently quoted as saying he's going to unmask Premier Harris. If there's anything that's been unmasked in recent days it's the oft-repeated myth that if you're Conservative, somehow you don't care about people. The second part of that myth is that only the Liberals care about people. I have to ask a question: Is that why the Liberals have cut funding for health care and education by $2.4 billion a year to Ontario? Is that why the 101 Liberal MPs from Ontario have never made a peep, never said a public word about those cuts? In fact, when was the last time anyone heard from the 101 MPs in Ontario?
Mr Baird: The 101 Dalmatians.
Mr Young: The 101 Dalmatians are in hiding because they've been told, "Toe the line or you're out." Just ask John Nunziata, the only Liberal who kept his word on the GST.
In fact, the Prime Minister of Canada is so paranoid about dissent that he declared the issue of lack of compensation to hepatitis C victims a matter of confidence: no free choice, no vote of conscience, but where's the compassion? If recent backtracking on the issue is any sign, and I think it is, there's no confidence in Mr Chrétien. Actually, it has been quite comical in recent days watching certain writers fall over themselves explaining how a provincial Conservative or a federal Reformer could support extending financial support to victims of hepatitis C beyond what the sanctimonious Liberals in Ottawa did. How they torture the truth to explain how the misunderstood Liberals were tricked into limiting aid by the mean provinces. Well, no one's buying it. The issue is actually much simpler: Premier Harris did the right thing. Our government is doing the right thing for those victims, just as we did the right thing in increasing spending on health care every year since we became the government, despite the $2.4-billion cut from the federal Liberals, the 101 Dalmatians.
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How were we able to do those things? How could we afford to increase health care spending and offer additional aid to hepatitis C victims? Because we found the savings first. Now there's an idea. Just like the responsible families and competitive businesses in Ontario, they understand how difficult and how necessary that is.
Premier Harris, Minister Eves and our caucus made tough decisions in 1995, 1996 and 1997. We agreed to allow restructuring of hospitals, after getting expert advice. We agreed to reduce the number of school boards to save $150 million a year on administration. We reduced fraud in welfare and asked those receiving benefits to take training themselves or to give something back in service to their communities. In other words, we agreed to be fiscally responsible. It was not easy. It was not fun. It was not enjoyable. But it was the right thing to do then, and Ontarians are beginning to receive the benefits now.
Mr Eves has chosen not to balance the budget early in our term but to stay with his plan and reinvest in the priorities of the people of Ontario: health care, education and safe streets, long-term investments that will work for Ontarians because the people who are promising them are people who keep their promises. Even people who disagree with our government have said again and again, "Well, you said you were going to do that." It's so true. Now, as we reinvest in Ontario, we have the credibility to bring our commitments to fruition. We have the track record to prove that we mean what we say, and because we did what we said we would, we have the money to pay for these priorities. We're returning Ontario to being one of the best-managed jurisdictions in the world, the best place to live, to work and to raise a family.
Mrs Helen Johns (Huron): I'd like to thank the member for Halton Centre (a) for the very enjoyable speech and (b) for sharing his time with me, and thank my colleagues for agreeing to that. I appreciate that. I figured after hearing me on the MAI you may not have wanted to hear me again today.
I wanted to talk about some of the output that is going to come to Huron county as a result of the budget. As a result of our implementing the tax cuts, most of us know how many dollars are going to be reinvested in our communities as a result of people having dollars to spend as opposed to the government having those dollars. In Huron county, the projected income tax cuts, when they're fully implemented, will support our community by putting $16 million back annually into the economy. That's a very important number for Huron county, and I think it's important for us to know.
When I thought about speaking tonight, I wanted to talk about health care, as the member for London Centre did. I think we've heard that we all see the health care issue very differently. In my community what has happened is that the reinvestments in our community far outweigh the dollars that have been taken out of the hospitals; they've been put back into services like long-term care, community services, things that people need and use within my community.
What has happened in my community is that I had five small hospitals, and those five small hospitals have just recently agreed to come together with a common administration. They've agreed to work together and look at where services need to be delivered to the people of Huron. What that will mean first off is that we will have $13 million that will move from administration in the eight hospitals of Huron-Perth to quality patient care. That's a very important issue. In a very small budget for hospitals, $13 million will go a long way to providing services for the people of the community.
The second thing that has happened in my community is that we have seen some substantial reinvestments that have made health care a better quality of care. In rural Ontario over the last 10 to 15 years, it has been very difficult to get doctors for emergency service both at night and on the weekends. We mustn't forget that it was this government that decided that $70 dollars per hour should be reinvested into the community for the weekends and evenings to ensure that we had doctors in emergency rooms. That reinvestment in my community of Huron county has been substantial. It has totalled $1.8 million over the last two years. That's a big dollar value that ensures that the quality of care is there for the people of my community.
Some of the other things that are very important that we've seen with health care in the reinvestments - and as my colleague from Halton Centre said, you have to find the savings first to be able to reinvest them. What we have also seen in our community is that the government has really focused on ambulance service, defibrillators, services that get the person from home to the hospital.
In the past, because it's an agricultural community, we've had some terrible farm accidents and we've needed to move these people quickly to the hospitals. We have improved our ability to get people to the hospitals quickly. We have improved our ability, once they're in the ambulance, to save lives. We've put approximately $200,000 into ambulances, defibrillators, some programs that make the people in the ambulance have a better quality of education too, so that also helps to improve the quality of care we receive in Huron county.
We have put $51,000 into cardiovascular disease prevention programs, which I think is important to do, for us all to understand that we have to lead healthy lives to have healthy hearts. We also have put dollars into immunization. In Huron county we've received $220,000 for hepatitis B immunizations. We've received measles and pneumococcal immunizations, all of that totalling another $200,000. So public health has been another area where this government has decided to take money and reinvest it, because that leads to preventive maintenance, if you will, of the people of Huron county, and that's important.
We also have a midwifery program in Huron county; it's been working out of one of the hospitals and working quite well. With that program, although the dollars have not been substantial, the quality of service has certainly increased. I think we're getting a better quality of service as a result of that program, another thing that I think is improving our health care in the county.
We also have adult day care programs, homemaking and professional services. Another $200,000 was invested into that, and that also is important for seniors who live alone or need extra care, who deal with Alzheimer's, people who have parents or spouses who need time to do other things so they have a life also. We have reinvested to make sure that their lives have some free time.
We looked at dollars to decide where our hospital services should go in the future, our district health council report. One of the things that I think is important is Healthy Babies, Healthy Children. In our community, where we have a lot of isolation, it's important for us to make sure that those children have an opportunity to be looked in on, especially if they're high-risk. That program has started with this government and more dollars have been put into it. I believe that if we deal with young families very early on or before the children are born, we have a better chance of making sure these children have a healthy existence.
We also put money into mental health services, which is important, because we haven't had very many mental health services in Huron county. I look forward to being able to ensure that we get better case management for our people, have better crisis intervention, have community outreach for the elderly, family development and consumer-survivor programs. All those things are very important.
What I'm really trying to stress here is that we had about $2 million taken out of our hospital health care budget in Huron county, but we've had reinvestments as administrative dollars have gone to patient care, reinvestments in long-term care, about $8 million, $9 million. From our standpoint, our county has really seen the benefit of taking a hard line, looking to see where dollars should be invested.
The member from London suggested that this was all party politics and that somehow the Conservative members were getting all the advantages of this. We know that what has happened is that the restructuring commission has come into a number of areas and in a non-partisan way has said: "What does this community need? How can we better service the people of the community?" - decisions I don't believe were based on politics. I believe these decisions were based on great health care, and I'm proud to be a part of this government.
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The Acting Speaker: Comments and questions?
Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I wish to say to the member for Huron that while I don't agree with everything she said, it was rather interesting nevertheless.
The member for Halton Centre reminds me of what Stephen Harper, who he would probably find to be rather significant, had to say about Parliament. This would certainly relate to this Parliament. At the time, he called MPs "regional sales reps," and described the parliamentary system as "excessively partisan, to the point of crippling Parliament's legislative agenda." I think that best describes the speech not by the member for Huron but by the member for Halton Centre, whose speech represented as much of a misrepresentation of the facts as I have seen in some period of time. Obviously, the member for Halton Centre has banned all the books for this year that he can in his riding, and now he has to turn to some other issues which are of some significance perhaps to this House.
I think what he misunderstands, deliberately or otherwise, is that when you initiate a substantial income tax cut when you are running a significant deficit, you have two things happen. One is that you have to make more substantial cuts or deeper cuts in essential services which governments provide than you would otherwise have to do. The second is that you have to borrow money to make up for that deficit. In other words, you increase the debt of the province. If you were to have been patient to implement your tax cuts after you had balanced the budget, you would find that it had more of an impact.
As I said to the member this morning, she should be sending a congratulatory letter of appreciation to Bill Clinton for the booming economy in the US, where they're buying our products from Ontario.
Mr Wildman: I listened with interest to the two presentations by the member for Halton Centre and the member for Huron. They had one thing in common: You could have put at the end a little tag saying, "These have been paid political announcements." Other than that, they were actually quite different.
The member for Huron went through a litany of expenditures - some cuts, but mainly expenditures - that she believes have benefited particularly health care in her constituency. It was sort of like a long list one might see perhaps in an election pamphlet.
The speech from the member for Halton Centre was of a different sort. It was putting forward the government's view, but there was far less concern for services to constituents than in the member for Huron's speech. Rather, it was more involved with arguing that those who have done well in life, those who have made a good deal of profit or have made a lot of money, shouldn't "have their money confiscated by government." I think that's the term he used. He also indicated that those at the bottom, who I would think all of us, of whatever political party, would believe are vulnerable and should receive assistance, somehow are living off everyone else. The speech lacked compassion and concern. It was a sort of selfish type of speech, which I found rather disappointing.
Mr Tom Froese (St Catharines-Brock): When we're debating the budget, the members across the way always want to talk about the pessimistic point of view. There's no optimism whatsoever when they speak of what's happening in the economy in Ontario. I just want them to realize, and to talk a little bit in the short time I have, about the very positive things that are happening in the Niagara region.
The St Catharines Standard printed a number of success stories on April 27, 1998. There are actually three or four sections of various success stories. They did a fantastic job of telling people in the Niagara region what's happening in the Niagara region. They talk about -
Mr Bill Grimmett (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): The other side, Tom: the Niagara Credit Union.
Mr Froese: Yes, they talk about the Niagara Credit Union, where I was formerly employed for 24 years, and how successful they have been. They talk about the tourism attractions. They talk about manufacturing and industry. They talk about the grape and wine industry and how successful that's been.
Much of it has been since 1995, when we took office. As a matter of fact, the St Catharines Standard editorial last week said: "The Ontario Tories took a big step this week towards vindicating themselves on their ambitious targets when Finance Minister Eves showed us a 1998 budget which has to be seen as almost universally good news for taxpayers."
I don't really have time to go into all of it, but the people in St Catharines, the people in Niagara region, know what success is happening. We don't have to go to the States. We don't necessarily have to support the Buffalo Sabres -
The Acting Speaker: The member's time has expired. The Chair recognizes the member for Essex South.
Mr Crozier: I think the taxpayers of Ontario see a certain hypocrisy in government: You have two levels of government that overspend. One level then tries to reduce its expenditures, and of course the next level of government says: "You can't do that to us. You can't take that money away from us. You're not treating us fairly." Then when that level of government downloads on to the municipalities, the municipalities say, "You can't do this to us," and the government says: "I'm sorry. The devil made us do it."
I don't even mind on occasion reading from the Common Sense Revolution, the sixth edition. The special introduction on the sixth printing says, "We would take into account any changes in the economic environment." It seems to me they're admitting, "We can handle it." They go on to say, "Now that the Martin federal budget has been delivered, with its significant reductions in federal transfers" - not necessarily to health, not necessarily to social services, not necessarily to education or housing - "here is the envelope." I think this government has used the word "envelope" frequently. "You spend it how you know best." It seems to me Mike Harris is saying, "We can handle it."
Then the whining starts. Once they've said to the people of Ontario, "We can handle it," then they start to whine.
So what are they going to do in addition to this whining? They're now going to make health care spending dependent upon gambling. That's criminal in itself. I don't care whether gambling is legal or not; to make health care spending in this province dependent upon gambling is criminal, and I don't think it should be that way.
The Acting Speaker: The member for Halton Centre has two minutes to respond.
Mr Young: I thank my colleagues for their comments.
I would like to ask the member for St Catharines to reflect a little bit on what he said. He talked about partisanship, so I'd like to ask the member for St Catharines how may times he's voted with our government in three years. I'd like to ask the member for St Catharines how many times he voted against his own party in the last three years, or any other. I'd like to ask the member for St Catharines to please be very careful before you fall off your high horse.
The member for Algoma talks about compassion. The NDP think they have a corner on compassion. By July, 640,000 low-income people, the highest in the history of Ontario, will pay no taxes at all in Ontario. Others with low incomes will have an over 40% tax cut. Some 400 new drugs will be on the formulary for people in need, and 345,000 families will have a new breadwinner in their family. We will have the highest amount in history spent on health care. So I say to the self-righteous members of the Liberal Party and the NDP, please get off your high horse. That is compassion.
The Acting Speaker: It being past 9:30, this House stands adjourned until 1:30 o'clock tomorrow.
The House adjourned at 2131.